In a unanimous vote, the Seattle City Council voted to temporarily expand the Pike Place Market Historical District to include the legendary Showbox Theater. The temporary ordinance will prevent the historic venue from being demolished by a Vancouer-based developer, and replaced with a $100M luxury apartment building. The planned demolition of the Showbox triggered an uproar from Seattle's music community, with prominent recording artists publishing a full-page ad the Seattle Times (featured below), as well as an online petition which at the time of this writing, has generated over 93,000 signatures.

Founded in 1939, the Showbox has hosted countless legendary acts, from the Jazz Age to the Grunge Area and beyond. “The Showbox is a focal point of culture in the city,” Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie stated in an interview earlier this month. “There are three things that people know about Seattle when you say that you live in Seattle — rain, coffee, music. You can’t attract people to a city by using its cultural touchstones … and then remove those things when they become inconvenient.”

Congrats to client Dangerous Year Productions and director Vlada Knowlton on the world premiere of the documentary film "The Most Dangerous Year" at the Seattle International Film Festival tonight at the Cinema Egyptian. The following is a synposis of the film:

“In 2016, a group of Washington State families with transgender kids join the fight against the wave of discriminatory anti-transgender legislation sweeping through the nation and into their home state. With the help of a coalition of state lawmakers and civil rights activists, these families embark on an uncharted journey of fighting to protect and preserve their children’s inalienable human rights and freedoms in this present-day civil right movement.”

LucasFilm, the owner of the iconic Star Wars movie franchise, has scored an early win in a lawsuit against the game developer of Sabacc, a lesser-known element of the fictional Star Wars universe. According to Star Wars lore (specifically, the 1980 novelization of The Empire Strikes Back), Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian through a winning hand in a game called Sabacc, a fictional betting game involving a special deck of cards where the goal is to finish with a hand as close as possible to positive or negative 23.

In 2016, London-based Ren Ventures obtained a U.S. federal trademark registration for Sabacc in connection with mobile games, claiming a first use date of November 2015. Although LucasFilm is well-known to be an aggressive enforcer of its extensive Star Wars-related trademarks (e.g., Jedi, The Force, Darth Vader, etc.), it’s likely that the Sabacc application slipped through LucasFilm’s trademark monitoring measures, because LucasFilm never secured a federal trademark registration for the term. Notwithstanding the absence of its own federal registration, LucasFilm filed both a Petition to Cancel the Sabacc registration with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and a lawsuit in California Federal District Court alleging trademark infringement. However, without a federal registration and its accompanying presumptions of validity, LucasFilm has the added challenge of establishing its common law rights to Sabacc in order to prevail on its claims.

Ren Ventures filed a Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit, alleging that Sabacc is merely a fictional card game in the Star Wars fantasy universe that does not function as a protectable trademark for real-world goods or services. In order to be protectable, trademarks must function as source identifiers that allow consumers to distinguish between products and services in the marketplace. Ren Ventures argued that the mere mention of the fictional game Sabacc in Star Wars lore is insufficient grounds for LucasFilm to claim protectable trademark rights in the term.

Although the lawsuit is still in the early stages, the judge appears to be leaning in favor of LucasFilm. In denying Ren Ventures’ Motion to Dismiss, the judge noted that even if Sabacc did not function as a trademark for a stand-alone game product, it could function as a source identifier for the overall Star Wars franchise. The judge concluded that because Ren Ventures had used Sabacc with the intent that consumers associate the unlicensed game with licensed Star Wars products, LucasFilm had stated a viable claim for trademark infringement for purposes of defeating the Motion to Dismiss.

In response to Ren Ventures’ argument that LucasFilm’s limited use of Sabacc was not continuous enough to establish trademark rights, the judge first noted that the issue involved a factual inquiry that could not be decided on a Motion to Dismiss (which is resolved based solely on the allegations made in the pleadings). The only alleged usage of Sabacc claimed by LucasFilm was in connection with a one-time release of playing cards that were not offered as a stand-alone game, but sold in conjunction with a Star Wars fan book entitled Crisis on Cloud City (see below). The judge noted that LucasFilm would not be required to establish at trial that it had released a new Sabacc card game each year in order to prevail on its claims. Instead, LucasFilm would only need to show that a prior release of the game had remained popular, and continued to circulate years after the initial release date.

It remains to be seen if the case will proceed to trial, but at least at this early stage, the court appears to be leaning in favor of LucasFilm on the merits of its claims.

From page 8 of the Complaint, a photo of the cover of the book Crisis on Cloud City, featuring an advertisement in the top right corner for “Sabacc Card Game Inside!”

Attached as Appendix A to the Complaint is a picture of the deck of Sabacc cards featured in the book. However, the term Sabacc does not appear anywhere on the product packaging - instead, the cards are labeled with characters written in the Star Wars fictional language Aurebesh (which allegedly, translates into English as Sabacc):

Today I will be presenting at the Connecting Writers with Hollywood conference, in Spokane, Washington. I will be speaking about intellectual property and other legal issues that arise for writers and producers. More information about the conference can be found here.

In an unusual case, a comedian has filed suit against the Conan O-Brien Show for copyright infringement arising out of alleged joke theft. The plaintiff, Robert Alexander Kaseberg, alleges that five jokes posted on his comedy blog and Twitter account were unlawfully stolen and featured in the Conan show monologue. The following are two examples of Kaseberg’s alleged infringements:

The “Tom Brady” joke:

Kaseberg version: “Tom Brady said he wants to give his MVP truck to the man who won the game for the Patriots. So enjoy that truck, Pete Carroll.”

Conan monologue version: “Tom Brady said he wants to give the truck that he was given as SuperBowl MVP to the guy who won the SuperBowl for the Patriots. Which is very nice. Yeah, I think that’s nice. I do. Yes. So Brady’s giving his truck to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.”

The “Bruce Jenner” joke:

Kaseberg version: “Three towns, one in Texas, one in Tennessee, have streets named after Bruce Jenner and now they have to consider changing them to Caitlyn. And one will have to change from a Cul-de-Sac to a Cul-De-Sackless.”

Conan monologue version: “Some cities that have streets named after Bruce Jenner are trying to change the streets’ names to Caitlyn Jenner. If you live on Bruce Jenner cul-de-sac it will now be cul-de-no-sack.”

In order to establish copyright infringement, Kaseberg must show that the Conan show writers had access to his jokes; and that the monologue jokes are substantially similar to Kaseberg's jokes. In their motion for summary judgment, the Conan defendants first argue that merely posting content online is insufficient to establish access. Further, the Conan defendants point out that the factual setups for all of the jokes are derived from current news events and stories, for which no comedian may claim a monopoly. Finally, the Conan writers also testified that parallel thought among comedy writers is an innate reality in the world of late-night talk shows, and it is not unusual for multiple comedians and social media users to independently create jokes in a similar vein. Conan O’Brien has vehemently denied the lawsuit allegations, stating in a deposition that “accusing a comedian of stealing a joke is the worst thing you can accuse them of, in my opinion, short of murder.”

While the jokes at issue do appear to bear some similarities, I think it’s unlikely that Kaseberg's claims will survive summary judgment. Jokes are generally derived from the realm of mere “ideas,” which are not protectable under copyright. Oral argument in the case is scheduled for this afternoon, and the judge will likely issue a ruling shortly thereafter. The case citation is Kaseberg v. Conaco, LLC et. al., 3:15-cv-01637-JLS-DHB.